5 ms·

>In your early 20s, a couple years of hard work sounds like an eternity. >In your 30s and later, you realize a couple years is barely a blip on the radar. Ano

>In your early 20s, a couple years of hard work sounds like an eternity. >In your 30s and later, you realize a couple years is barely a blip on the radar. Another way to look at this is that when your youth is rapidly diminishing you really care about how you spend it but once that ship has sailed you rationalize whatever path you took.

whatshisface 6y ago
Once it's spent, it doesn't really matter how, except insofar as it's left you with something afterwards. Three people standing side by side, one of them partied their whole twenties, the other focused on career, the last had kids. They're all thirty, so that's the same, but one of them clearly is worse off.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  The only thing it can leave you with that truly matters is fulfillment. It couldn't be any less clear which of the three — if any — is worse off.
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    I guess it's possible to slip in to the geriatric backward-looking phase of life at 30, finding fulfillment in memories, but that sounds pretty bad to me, to be honest. That's like, 12 good years in your whole life.
- jstanley 6y ago
  Which one?
  - munk-a 6y ago
    I assume the one who focused on their career since they likely didn't actually accumulate any significant wealth while missing out on all the fun due to the way we compensate workers. Hiring and compensation is also quite ageist (this time not in the normal bad way!) where being thirty generally entitles you to a higher salary expectation than someone in their twenties. However, I think there are just as valid arguments to be made for each of the people noted - some people would view the person with kids as having a burden to deal with through their thirties and other folks will consider the person who partied to have wasted their time possibly killing off brain cells and doing nothing "productive". I think overall this is a really personal and opinionated question - I'd favor the career oriented individual as "failing" purely from a philosophy focused on enjoying and expanding the non-vocational portions of life, but we've all got different wants and needs - I hope the third paragraph helps explain the trade offs all three folks are making. The key thing is that nobody gets to live all lives - unless you're talking about The Egg[1]. 1. http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html
- munificent 6y ago
  Extend your analogy out in time: Three people in their 90s, laying side by side at their deathbeds. One filled their life with friends and experiences, the other did nothing but work, the other raised children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Now who is the winner and who the loser?
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    > Now who is the winner and who the loser? Depends on who's awarding the points. Could be either one of them. Could be all of them. It's not like they were competing, or even playing the same game.
    - RugnirViking 6y ago
      The point of the example is to show that there is no objective measure of success in life
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    The one with kids has visitors so probably them. Old people can get pretty lonely if they don't have descendants. It's not talked about often but it's a really important part of not being miserable when you're 90. When your body isn't good for anything anymore and you can't even enjoy spending money, being happy about the people you created is more or less the only thing left - and you can really be happy about it. But that's only if you have a good sense of empathy for the happiness of people you care about.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Huge assumption that someone has visitors just because they had kids.
      - whatshisface 6y ago
        I guess you could call it a necessary but insufficient condition.
bena 6y ago
Yet a third way is that the younger you are, the greater the percentage of your lived life is represented by a year. When you are 5, a year represents a full 20% of your life. (And even more of the amount of life you are capable of fully aware of). When you are 20, a year is 5% of your life. When you are 50, it's 2%. Imagine asking someone to commit to what is effectively seen as 25% of their life to a project. But that's what we do when we tell teenagers to start thinking about college.
- munk-a 6y ago
  That's a good insight but I think you're underselling things - most folks don't really have experiences of any sort from their <3 years. I think it's also pretty common for teens to consider themselves five or so years prior to be different people due to how fast you're maturing. When you're making a decision to choose which college to go to I think it's fair to view that as deciding what to do with the next third of your life from a teenager's perspective.

whatshisface 6y ago

Once it's spent, it doesn't really matter how, except insofar as it's left you with something afterwards. Three people standing side by side, one of them partied their whole twenties, the other focused on career, the last had kids. They're all thirty, so that's the same, but one of them clearly is worse off.

jakelazaroff 6y ago
The only thing it can leave you with that truly matters is fulfillment. It couldn't be any less clear which of the three — if any — is worse off.
- whatshisface 6y ago
  I guess it's possible to slip in to the geriatric backward-looking phase of life at 30, finding fulfillment in memories, but that sounds pretty bad to me, to be honest. That's like, 12 good years in your whole life.
jstanley 6y ago
Which one?
- munk-a 6y ago
  I assume the one who focused on their career since they likely didn't actually accumulate any significant wealth while missing out on all the fun due to the way we compensate workers. Hiring and compensation is also quite ageist (this time not in the normal bad way!) where being thirty generally entitles you to a higher salary expectation than someone in their twenties. However, I think there are just as valid arguments to be made for each of the people noted - some people would view the person with kids as having a burden to deal with through their thirties and other folks will consider the person who partied to have wasted their time possibly killing off brain cells and doing nothing "productive". I think overall this is a really personal and opinionated question - I'd favor the career oriented individual as "failing" purely from a philosophy focused on enjoying and expanding the non-vocational portions of life, but we've all got different wants and needs - I hope the third paragraph helps explain the trade offs all three folks are making. The key thing is that nobody gets to live all lives - unless you're talking about The Egg[1]. 1. http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html
munificent 6y ago
Extend your analogy out in time: Three people in their 90s, laying side by side at their deathbeds. One filled their life with friends and experiences, the other did nothing but work, the other raised children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Now who is the winner and who the loser?
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  > Now who is the winner and who the loser? Depends on who's awarding the points. Could be either one of them. Could be all of them. It's not like they were competing, or even playing the same game.
  - RugnirViking 6y ago
    The point of the example is to show that there is no objective measure of success in life
- whatshisface 6y ago
  The one with kids has visitors so probably them. Old people can get pretty lonely if they don't have descendants. It's not talked about often but it's a really important part of not being miserable when you're 90. When your body isn't good for anything anymore and you can't even enjoy spending money, being happy about the people you created is more or less the only thing left - and you can really be happy about it. But that's only if you have a good sense of empathy for the happiness of people you care about.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Huge assumption that someone has visitors just because they had kids.
    - whatshisface 6y ago
      I guess you could call it a necessary but insufficient condition.

bena 6y ago

Yet a third way is that the younger you are, the greater the percentage of your lived life is represented by a year. When you are 5, a year represents a full 20% of your life. (And even more of the amount of life you are capable of fully aware of). When you are 20, a year is 5% of your life. When you are 50, it's 2%. Imagine asking someone to commit to what is effectively seen as 25% of their life to a project. But that's what we do when we tell teenagers to start thinking about college.

munk-a 6y ago
That's a good insight but I think you're underselling things - most folks don't really have experiences of any sort from their <3 years. I think it's also pretty common for teens to consider themselves five or so years prior to be different people due to how fast you're maturing. When you're making a decision to choose which college to go to I think it's fair to view that as deciding what to do with the next third of your life from a teenager's perspective.